Map Office

FIELD MEETINGOctober 27th, 2014 New York City

Sitting seiza style on the floral rug that furnished Asia Society’s auditorium stage for FIELD MEETING, Hong Kong-based, multidisciplinary platform MAP Office, the artist and architect duo Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix, spoke about Territorial definitions both physical and imaginary; particularly their research on Islands and other liquid territories. They also discussed Atlas of Asia Art Archive and Performing the Archipelago as part of their research on mapping Asia’s artistic production, expressed through varied means including drawing, photography, video, installations, performance, and literary and theoretical texts.

Bio – MAP Office (Hong Kong; Laurent GUTTIEREZ, Valerie PORTEFAIX)
MAP Office is a multidisciplinary platform devised by Laurent Gutierrez (born 1966, Casablanca, Morocco) and Valérie Portefaix (born 1969, Saint-Étienne, France). This duo of artists/architects has been based in Hong Kong since 1996, working on physical and imaginary territories using varied means of expression including drawing, photography, video, installations, performance, and literary and theoretical texts. Starting with Mapping Hong Kong (2000), their entire project forms a critique of spatio-temporal anomalies and documents how human beings subvert and appropriate space. Humor, games, and fiction are also part of their approach, in the form of various publications and films providing a further format for disseminating their work. Their cross-disciplinary practice has been exhibited in major international art, design, and architecture events and is the subject of a monograph, MAP OFFICE—Where the Map is the Territory (2011). In 2013 MAP Office was the recipient of the 2013 edition of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Laurent Gutierrez is an associate professor and Valérie Portefaix a visiting assistant professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.